Australia's coaching failures go beyond Mickey Arthur

We would be best to allocate a Test head coach and a one-day/T20 coach (Getty)

Getty Images: Mike Hewitt

The reported sacking of coach Mickey Arthur has highlighted the Australian cricket team's lack of leadership and outdated coaching structure, writes Bryce McGain.

It seems Australian cricket coach Mickey Arthur has been fired. Cricket Australia chief James Sutherland and general manager of team performance Pat Howard are due to explain the new coaching structure this evening.

The termination has been swift. It follows the ICC Champions Trophy failure - in which Australia finished on the bottom of Group B behind England, Sri Lanka and New Zealand - and the whitewash 4-0 loss in the Indian Test series in March.

In the past few months, we have witnessed repeated, well-documented disciplinary issues with the Australian cricket team, a team which lacks true leadership.

Questionable sanctions handed down to Dave Warner for assaulting England cricketer Joe Root in a bar after 2am in the middle of the most important international cricket tournament of the year - an incident which followed another very public late night battle on Twitter with respected Australian journalists Conn and Craddock while he was in India with the IPL tournament - were simply a soft touch and inadequate.

Compare missing a few tour matches and an inconsequential fine to the Test match ban of the then vice-captain Shane Watson and three teammates following their failure to hand in a written team-review task in the Indian series.

Warner should have been sent home to spend a winter in New South Wales, with a clear message that compiling Sheffield Shield runs in the coming season would be his only way to return to the Australian set-up.

In leading sporting teams, there is no room for members who jeopardise the preparation, recovery and overall performance by acting in a selfish manner. These are minimum standards, and if leaders can't make those uncompromising decisions, then they shouldn't accept the role.

Australian cricket team leaders have confessed publicly to a culture of players cutting corners in their own physical preparation as well as a divide within the team dynamics.

Skipper Michael Clarke finds himself in a conflicting situation as captain and selector of the team. If reports are correct that he has stood down as a selector, then this is the right thing to do.

Clarke has unequivocally supported his men publically, even suggesting that Warner could be a future Australian captain (though privately he must be seething that Warner followed this with the 2am assault). But Clarke has also had to uphold the standards and disciplines of his added role of selector.

The captain as selector was initiated to ensure that the skipper has a vote to get "his" team, but in these situations the roles clash.

I'm not certain of the formal leadership training the Australian cricketers have received, but a key starting point is seeking first to understand, then being understood when addressing day-to-day issues that arise.

Leadership is not letting things slide, nor is it running around like policemen telling each other off - some young cricketers and young men in society could be mistaken for believing this is the case.

The first step in leadership is to be able to lead yourself with responsibility and accountability.

World-renowned personal leadership author Stephen Covey believes, "Self-mastery and self-discipline are the foundation of good relationships with others."

And so it is true for the Australian cricket team.

Demands on a single head coach of an international cricket team are extreme in the least, and I no longer believe the single head coach can do the role justice.

We would be best to allocate a Test head coach and a one-day/T20 coach to prepare each team for the specific requirements - "red ball" and "white ball" coaches, if you will.

Certainly both coaches need to work closely together to ensure all players and future players are prepared, challenged, focused, receive feedback, know their roles, set training programs etc. The task list is enormous and clearly too much slips through the cracks for one man to manage.

Cricket has a history of not doing these aspects well, and it would be an enormous task for one man to do this with the current schedule and cricketers all over the globe.

England has implemented this alternative structure with great success recently, with key men Andy Flower and Ashley Giles heading the white and red ball games.

It's impressive and daunting (from my Australian perspective) to think that while Ashley Giles was at the tiller of the England ICC Champions Trophy campaign (narrowly losing the final to India last night), Andy Flower has been preparing and plotting the demise of the Australian Test team.